Can we ever make sense of the scale?

One day a woman told
me that she and her friend went to Boston on a Friday night and ate dessert and
the next morning when they went to Weight Watchers, she had lost 4 pounds. She
felt she had gotten away with eating the dessert. And like many people, she felt
that the scale just doesn’t make any sense and that when she was
“good” the scale went up and when she was “bad” the scale
went down. The conclusion was, “why even bother?!”

Over the years this
has caused me to think you could win a Nobel Prize or something if you could
determine when what you consume today actually, really, truly shows up for real
as more or less body fat on the scale. Well, one of you may deserve the
Nobel Prize as far as I am concerned! (You know who you are).

The person I am describing
actually gained 30 pounds in the first 3 years of coming to me. She could not
make heads or tails of food, eating, appetite, weight or much else. Every time
she thought the scale would go down it went up and every time she thought the
scale would go up it went down.

Since then a lot has
happened and her body today weighs nearly 140 pounds less than that highest
weight. She has learned many things. One of the things she recently learned and
taught me was that, at least for her, the scale reflects her eating, drinking and
moving as much as 10-14 days after those behaviors take place. She happens to
be an extremely detailed oriented person and tracks her consumption and
activity in relationship to the old “number on the scale.”

I personally believe
she has sort of “cracked the code”, that there may be at least a one
week lag time between what food and drink we consume today in combination with
the amount of movement we do, and when all of that really, truly, and yes
finally shows up on the scale.

How many of us have made
the mistake of throwing in the proverbial towel because we thought we were
“good” and the scale went up, or we thought we were “bad”
and the scale went down? How much would it change this journey for you if you
cultivated a little bit of patience and simply waited another week before
changing things, so that you could stop chasing your proverbial tail and
finally have a weight that supports your health and happiness?